Here's a brief video from The Boston Globe's Boston.com that captured the first explosion, and seconds later, the sound of the second explosion near the finish line of the Boston Marathon: http://live.boston.com/Event/Live_blog_Explosion_in_Copley_Square

Publicis Groupe reported revenue of approximately $2.04 billion in the first quarter of 2013, up 7.6%. Organic revenue growth was lower-just 1.3%, down from the 4.1% organic growth the company posted in the same period a year ago. The firm cited a sharp organic revenue decline in Europe for the period-down 6.5%, with a much better story in North America, where growth was up 4.4%. Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy stated, "As I predicted, 2013 is turning out to be a difficult and contrasted vintage, with on the one hand the United States consolidating their growth and on the other …

On Monday Nissan today announced that the CEO of Chrysler LLC's Ram Truck brand is heading to Franklin, Tenn. to be divisional VP, Nissan Sales & Marketing for the U.S. Diaz will report to Jose Munoz, SVP, sales & marketing, customer quality and dealer network development, for the Americas.

Facebook ad partner Spruce Media on Monday announced integrating Nielsen’s Online Campaign Ratings to help clients measure the effectiveness of Facebook campaigns. The company said the Nielsen system until now has only been available to advertisers buying media directly with the social network.   Nielsen says its Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings is the first Web measurement system providing demographic ratings for online ad campaigns with certain metrics comparable to those used for TV advertising to be accredited by …

LinkedIn on Thursday confirmed acquiring newsreader app Pulse as it seeks to offer more content to keep users sticking  around. The professional networking site paid approximately $90 million in cash and stock for the startup whose app boasts more than 30 million users in 190 countries. News the companies were in talks was first reported last month. The acquisition follows other steps LinkedIn has taken in the last year to ramp up content and become more of a publishing platform to boost engagement. Those moves include creating a news page, its purchase of SlideShare, the redesign of profile …

Pandora on Tuesday announced hitting the 200 million user mark in the U.S. Launched in the summer of 2005, the online radio service reach 100 million registered users in July 2011, adding the next 100 million in less than two years. Among other user stats the company released today: -Pandora streams 200 million songs before 10 a.m. every day. -Listeners have personalized their stations with more than 25 billion thumbs. -Last month, Pandora played more than 100,000 unique artists and more than 1 million unique songs. The vast majority of that music got no other terrestrial radio airplay. -More …

Ending one of the most tumultuous retail reigns in recent memory, JC Penney has shown controversial CEO Ron Johnson the door, and says former CEO Myron E. Ullman will replace him. Johnson joined JCP from Apple in November, 2011, and embarked on an ambitious rebranding effort. That included a shift away from its promotional pricing strategy, and drove away its most loyal customers: Sales fell 28% in sales in its most recent quarterly results. "While jcpenney has faced a difficult period, its legacy as a leader in American retailing is an asset that can be built upon and leveraged," Ullman …

It took just five days into the 2013 baseball season for MLB.com’s At Bat application to hit four million downloads. It wasn’t until May 18—45 days after Opening Day—the app reached that level last year, according to MLB Advanced Media. It also puts the 2013 edition, released on Feb. 21, on pace to break the 7 million downloads last season. At Bat 13 includes new features such as additional news video and historical baseball footage going back to the 1952 World Series. All MLB video highlights are now also searchable. The app requires a one-time $19.99 subscription fee for the …

LinkedIn saw solid user growth in March, with unique visitors up 24% from a year ago, and from 17% in February. That’s the biggest spike for the professional network since February 2012, according a research note Monday from Macquarie Securities. Page views increased 16% in March after a slowdwon in February (up 10%), but were still below January’s 22% increase. For the first quarter, page view growth slowed to 16% from 28% in the fourth quarter of 2012, when the company introduced several new products including redesigned profile pages and the Influencers blog network. LinkedIn rolled out an upgraded search …

eBay-owned E-commerce system Magento has partnered with AdRoll to integrate access to its ad-targeting platform into the Magento software used by 150,000 merchants worldwide. After installing an AdRoll software through Magento Connect, AdRoll creates a free account, placing a retargeting pixel on the user’s site, and importing necessary product information. Participating merchants can then use the company’s retargeting offerings, including LiquidAds and retargeting on Facebook Exchange, to run campaigns. Magento is part of e-Bay’s X.Commerce initiative, providing merchants and developers a range of tools for doing business online.